Frequently Asked Questions

+ My child appears to be struggling in school. Her teacher says to just wait; she’ll be fine, and her grades aren’t that bad. What should I do?

It is very important that you get help as soon as you realize your child is having difficulty learning. Finding the right person to work with your child, and getting help early, can mean the difference between success and failure in school.

A conference with your child’s school is a good first step. Collect information on your child’s performance, ability to study at home and school, attitudes toward school, and relationships. All of these can be important indicators of problems. You should also learn about your rights and responsibilities as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA is a law that requires all states to provide a public school education no matter how severe the disabilities are. Ultimately, trust your intuition! No one knows your child better than you.

It is scary to admit that your child is struggling to learn. Research tells us that parents fear that their child may be “labeled for life” if he or she is identified as having a learning disability. Please know that you are not alone. Consider that at least 2.7 million children are receiving help in school because of a learning disability. The National Institutes of Health even estimate that one of every seven Americans (15 percent) has some degree of learning difficulty. Most learning difficulties affect reading and language skills. In fact, a significant majority of students with a learning disability have problems with reading. If these children receive appropriate help in the early grades, most of them will become skilled, independent readers. When help is delayed, it becomes harder and harder for children to catch up.

Perhaps the most important reason to seek help early is to spare children the frustration and failure they experience when they don’t do well in school and don’t know why. You can help your child to understand that he or she is intelligent but simply learns differently.

+ Why get testing?

If you suspect your child may be having trouble learning, it is important to have an evaluation to better understand the problem. Without an evaluation, there is no way to know for sure what is going on. Just as you would never treat a broken arm with cold medicine, neither do you want to treat your child for the wrong learning problem. Testing provides you with specific information about what your child’s needs are. Test results determine eligibility for special education services in various states, and they also determine eligibility for programs in colleges and universities. The appropriate assessment will provide a basis for making educational recommendations and determining the baseline from which remediation programs will be evaluated.

+ What if my child has dyslexia? Who can help us?

Academic language therapists, specialists, Orton-Gillingham tutors, Barton tutors, and many other individuals can be qualified to teach your child. When it comes to dyslexia and reading therapy, competent individuals go through specific extensive training in multi-sensory structured language therapy methods. They are trained to remediate problems in reading, spelling, written language, and sometimes math. When looking for a therapist, consider these factors: level of training, methods trained in, number of students he/she has worked with, etc. Ultimately, it’s important that your student be very comfortable with a tutor who is using an evidence-based teaching method.

+What is the Orton-Gillingham methodology for multi-sensory instruction/intervention?

Orton-Gillingham is the umbrella methodology under which a reading and dyslexia tutor should be trained. Tutors can be trained in a variety of programs that fall under that methodology.

“In the 1930’s neurologist Dr. Samuel T. Orton and educator, psychologist Anna Gillingham developed the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction for students with dyslexia. This theory combines multi-sensory techniques along with the structure of the English language. Those items taught include: phonemes and morphemes, such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Common spelling rules are introduced as well. Multi-sensory education incorporates the three learning pathways, which are: auditory, kinesthetic, and visual. This approach is beneficial not only for students with dyslexia, but for all learners.”

Taken from The Institute for MultiSensory Education, www.orton-gillingham.com

+What about math?

Math is often impacted by dyslexia and reading struggles in many ways. Students often have difficulty with word problems, sequencing, memorizing math facts, and directionality (before and after). Lexicon does not offer subject-based math tutoring, rather we provide multi-sensory math instruction to address core issues that are lacking.

“Excelling at math, or just even being able to pass the requirements, draws on many different skills and ways of thinking—it calls on conceptual, logical, and spatial reasoning, but it also often requires neatness, exactness, and computational skills. There are many areas in which to shine in mathematics, but unfortunately, there are also many areas in which to struggle. These tasks change over time, demanding increased refinement or elaboration of skill sets, or the addition of new ones as a student progresses through school. Woodin encourages teachers to treat math problems with the same kind of thoughtful and targeted strategies that are applied to reading instruction.”

Taken from The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, www.dyslexia.yale.edu

+Do you take insurance?

Lexicon is a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arkansas PPO provider for clients who receive speech and language services only. At this time, our reading services are not covered by insurance.